Zoom sees insane 2,680% growth on iOS as the world works from home

Video conferencing apps ruled the App Store in March, with Zoom benefitting particularly from the fact that most people are stuck home, figures released by leading app analytics platform Sensor Tower suggest.

Zoom was the most downloaded non-game app worldwide for March 2020. Sensor Tower told Cult of Mac that the iOS app was downloaded 27.8 million times in March 2020. That’s an astonishing 2,680% increase from the number of times it was downloaded last March.

“The popularity of various video conferencing apps has surged dramatically since early March, as shown by the … year-on-year downloads growth for Zoom on the App Store,” Craig Chapple, mobile insights strategist, EMA, for Sensor Tower, told Cult of Mac. “With hundreds of millions of people around the world on lockdown amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, employers are having to find new ways of enabling their teams to communicate. Now that these voice conferencing platforms are being utilized on an unprecedented scale, remote working could become the norm once the lockdowns are lifted as companies start seeing the benefits, resulting in a permanent change in how many of us work.”

Enterprise communication tool DingTalk, VooV Meeting, Microsoft Teams, and the more casual chat app HouseParty also secured places in the top 10. On the non-chat end of the spectrum, TikTok continued to cement its dominance by coming second on the list. However, it was knocked off its previous top spot by Zoom.

How Sensor Tower recorded the top apps for March.Photo: Sensor Tower

Zoom’s App Store popularity rockets — but there are concerns

Zoom has seen its popularity rocket during the current coronavirus pandemic, which has prompted many people to work from home. According to one recent report, in certain places it has seen a surge of 700% usage in recent months. Given the growth in downloads, that’s more than believable.

However, the app is not without its controversy. In recent weeks, researchers have raised a number of security issues with Zoom. These range from compromised Zoom accounts found on the dark web to the practice of “Zoombombing.” On Tuesday, a class-action lawsuit was filed against Zoom Video Communications. It accused the app-maker of “overstating its privacy standards and failing to disclose that its service was not end-to-end encrypted,” according to Reuters.